Open Air Composting - The Good and The Ugly

 OPEN AIR COMPOSTING - Why To and Why Not To Do It.

The answer to that really for me relies on where your location is.  If you are in the city or suburbs NO.  

If you are doing an allotment or you have quite a large acreage in which to grow and compost, then it is often easy to make large amounts of compost.

Let me start first by saying, I am not such a fan of open composting for a few reasons:

1) If you are composting kitchen scraps, you need to bury them at least 8" in the center of the pile with some soil each time to avoid having raccoons, and other wild animals coming to search for a meal.  The other thing that I do not like is if you have house snails or regular snails, they too are attracted to the pile.  

While this may seem like a good idea to keep them away from your plants, "think... food, house, shelter.. babies...  The future snails are the issue.  Here in the Netherlands there are 200 different varieties of "slakken" / snails, when you realize that for everyone you take away, they have probably already reproduced many more, and that can become a huge issue.  

It's easy to just toss things onto a pile without thinking through what is going to compost quickly and what will not.  In  a container system you are more limited to the amount of space you have, thus you will quickly learn to snip things into small pieces and to compost things that will quickly compost.  With a compost bin that is open, or just in a pile, people tend to just throw things on without thinking, brown and green and in between.  

Brown and green and in between means -- you need brown and green and a bit of good stuff to heat up the compost pile.  By good stuff I mean adding in a shovel of horse, cow, rabbit, chicken manure to the center of the pile every once in awhile.  People use to recommend adding lime (aka) kalk to a pile to help it to heat up, but that really defeats the purpose.  You are composing nitrogen rich components in your compost pile, adding lime would lower the PH level.  If you are composting primarily highly acidic elements such as evergreen tree limbs, leaves and pine needles, then indeed you could add lime to counteract the acidic nature of those elements however that is hardly ever the case, we normally compost more kitchen scraps, garden debris from overspent plants and weeds.  Thus lime is not needed in that environment.  

Thus, an open compost absolutely works, and can work very well when you mix... brown and green and in between.... along with turning the pile at least once a week, preferably more when possible.  The aeration of the pile improves the breakdown of materials and helps to alleviate alot of the smell from piles.  The piles need air to compost quickly and efficiently.  You will also find that with turning it you will get more worms working the pile which will greatly enhance the compost.  

So, while I may not be the greatest advocate for open composting, it can certainly make a large volume of compost in a short time if properly sorted into layers, brown, green and in between.  If you remember that little saying, you will always remember how to properly layer your compost.

I do think that a wire mesh covering around and over the pile is always better, it alleviates many of the snail issues, though as we all know small ones will find a way in, but at least the huge subway size snails won't make their way inside if it is properly covered and it helps to keep some of the wildlife from grazing there. 

Is there a better way than this method or an enclosed tumbler?  You should try filling clear see through trash bags with brown and green and in between, as well as black garbage bags (both only filled half full), place in the bright sun location.  You might be surprised at how quickly they decompose, and it's a great way for a quick liquid fertilizer, make sure you dilute the liquid 1 part composted stinky liquid to 10 parts water. 

TIP:  Add nutrient rich stinging nettles to your compost piles, they are full of vitamins and minerals, and you can find them in most every location where there are wooded areas.  Just make sure to wear gloves when handling, because they do sting when their hairs get trapped in your skin. 

DO ADD:
Egg shells (crushed only); kitchen vegetable scraps,  newspaper print (not colored ads); cardboard broken down into tiny bits; biodegradable peanut packers; saw dust, lint from the dryer and the normal compost articles.

DO NOT ADD:
Meat, bones, urine (I just shake my head at this one because if you are composting properly, you would simply not need to ever think you needed to add it, (PLUS IT'S DISGUSTING).  Do not add wood that has had chemicals to preserve it; do not add plastic (why would I even add that you are asking yourself), because some items that are prepared in biodegradable products are sometimes have an overlay of plastic over them, misleading the consumer into thinking it is a biologically friendly package, when essentially it is except the plastic isn't, another marketing trick...  There are many people that say it is ok to add potatoes and tomato plants to the pile, I don't recommend that due to the mosaic virus, and also do not add in diseased plants, don't ruin a perfect product when fully composted with virus and materials that can contaminate your soil and give your healthy plants a disease.  What would be the point of compost?  Lastly, sometimes it is better to send excess material to the city compost because there is obviously only so much we can compost at one time, and the room can be better utilized with actually growing crops.

Let me hear your success stories, do you get more compost from your open piles or closed container piles?  Do you have any secret tricks or tips to make better compost or to compost faster?  I've love to hear.